Maria Friedman has come a long way since her first solo show in 1994. But, although she has a rare talent, her latest performance smacks of self-indulgence. The musical content - some 20 rearranged songs backed by an 11-piece band under Michael Haslam's direction - is fine; what irks is the gossipy chat between the numbers and Friedman's frequent "corpsing" that all too literally stops the show.

When she is content just to sing, Friedman shows her remarkable breadth and variety. She is famously good on Sondheim and delivers the tongue-twisting Story of Lucy and Jessie with phenomenal dexterity. She also has a passion for European composers like Jacques Brel and Michel Legrand, whose Le Trombone, arranged by Jason Carr, vividly incorporates every instrument in the band. Occasionally, a song is invested with more emotion than it can reasonably contain; the treatment of You Are My Sunshine as a heart-throbbing bluesy ballad suggests steamrollers being used to crack walnuts.

But Friedman can switch from the heartfelt to the ironic with the greatest of ease, and moves deftly between the tenderness of Jerry Herman's Look Over There and the wicked satire of Randy Newman's assault on Short People.

Friedman confirms she is a home-grown Streisand. She needs, however, to get her act together. Between numbers the temperature perceptibly drops as she joshes the band, gushes about her various arrangers and members of her family, and becomes what Damon Runyon once termed a "gabby doll". There is genuine artistry in Friedman's singing but little in her presentation; she should follow the advice of Sondheim's Marry Me a Little and "keep a tender distance".